Ages of massive galaxies at \(0.5 < z < 2.0\) from 3D-HST rest-frame optical spectroscopy

Abstract

We present low-resolution near-infrared stacked spectra from the 3D-HST survey up to \(z=2.0\) and fit them with commonly used stellar population synthesis models: BC03 (Bruzual & Charlot, 2003), FSPS10 (Flexible Stellar Population Synthesis, Conroy & Gunn 2010), and FSPS-C3K (Conroy, Kurucz, Cargile, Castelli, in prep). The accuracy of the grism redshifts allows the unambiguous detection of many emission and absorption features, and thus a first systematic exploration of the rest-frame optical spectra of galaxies up to \(z=2\). We select massive galaxies (\(\rm log(M_{*} / M_{\odot}) > 10.8\)), we divide them into quiescent and star-forming via a rest-frame color-color technique, and we median-stack the samples in 3 redshift bins between \(z=0.5\) and \(z=2.0\). We find that stellar population models fit the observations well at wavelengths below \(\rm 6500 \AA\) rest-frame, but show systematic residuals at redder wavelengths. The FSPS-C3K model generally provides the best fits (evaluated with a \(\chi^2_{red}\) statistics) for quiescent galaxies, while BC03 performs the best for star-forming galaxies. The stellar ages of quiescent galaxies implied by the models, assuming solar metallicity, vary from 4 Gyr at \(z \sim 0.75\) to 1.5 Gyr at \(z \sim 1.75\), with an uncertainty of a factor of 2 caused by the unknown metallicity. On average the stellar ages are half the age of the Universe at these redshifts. We show that the inferred evolution of ages of quiescent galaxies is in agreement with fundamental plane measurements, assuming an 8 Gyr age for local galaxies. For star-forming galaxies the inferred ages depend strongly on the stellar population model and the shape of the assumed star-formation history.